Meditation on migraines

Every single morning my first thought is: Does my head hurt?  That is, if I haven’t already been awakened at 4 a.m. by pain deep between my eyes signaling the beginning of an excruciating migraine headache (think: red hot poker through your brain) that’ll knock me out for the rest of the day.  

After years of suffering more than a dozen migraines a month (thought to be triggered by certain foods and sleep or weather changes), my doctor finally prescribed a daily dose of Topamax – “with two side effects.” She cautioned:  “It suppresses appetite, so you might lose some weight.” (Score!)  “And, you may lose words” (thus its unofficial nickname “Dope-a-max.”) Whoa, wait a minute. I’m a preacher.  My business is public speaking. This could be embarrassing.

Like the time we cleaned the church rolls, and I was explaining to the session about the homebound folks who are struggling with … “Oh shoot, what’s that word for when you lose your memory?”  “Dementia?” the elders say sheepishly, eyebrows raised.  Uh, yeah, that really happened.

Or, when I’m doing the words of institution from “memory,” and tag on the Pauline coda, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup …” Then, poof! I’ve said these words a gazillion times, but the rest have gone MIA.  I give my non-pastor spouse a “throw me a lifeline” glance, but we too have a failure to communicate. So I punt, mumbling something that sounds spiritual.  

This may be one, though not the only, reason I am so drawn to a participative style of preaching. I regularly invite the worshipping community of 30 to 40 people to literally chime in, to share their perspective and insights.  We preach together because they’ve got words, too.  When I get stuck I say: Help me out here! Or, I just outright ask them:  What’s the word I’m looking for? Or: How might you say this in your own words?  

My migraine medication is helping me face that what I am most addicted to is control. I might’ve been tempted to write about my cravings, starting with the relatively benign barbeque potato chips, or scrolling through my Facebook feed (both of which, by the way, probably help trigger migraine headaches — yes, MSG and blue light are triggers), or share my familial history of alcoholism and drug abuse.  But what I really crave is perfection.  At the very least, I want all the best words all the time.

Frederick Buechner exposes the heart of my dilemma: “What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else, is to be known in our full humanness, and yet, that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.”  That’s why, Buechner continues,  “It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are … because otherwise, we run the risk of losing track … and come to accept instead, the highly edited version, which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.” 

A part of the unedited version of me is I’m a preacher of the Word who occasionally loses her words.  There.  I said it.  Whew.

I am persuaded by Johan Hari who contends that “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It’s connection.”  Dan Satterberg adds, “What most addicted people need to get better is to rebuild connections to the positive people in [their] community and begin to believe that they are worthy of love and help.”

Honestly, taking “Dope-a-max” has become a bit of a spiritual practice for me – of letting go of perfection and being in control, of living into community and trusting myself as I truly am to God and to my sisters and brothers in Christ, one day at a time.